As healthcare becomes more and more a quality driven industry, finding innovative methods of tracking, analyzing and making use of data collected on patient experience is going to be key to patient satisfaction scores. As you are likely already aware, those scores are what has been the driving force behind hospital and provider rankings.

Back in 2007, the healthcare industry was introduced to a little concept called The Triple Aim. The major motivation for which is improving population health through a three pronged framework:
Improving the patient experience of care (including quality and satisfaction);
Improving the health of populations; and
Reducing the per capita cost of health care.

We've talked about HIPAA audits before, but today, we want to go over what a HIPAA audit can actually mean for your organization. There are both positive and negative implications for the increased security around patient health information, so let's see what exactly they are.

If you read our most recent blog on HIPAA violations, you know that employee error is one of the five most common HIPAA violations. It could be a lost electronic device or an unintentional error, but either way a breach can drastically effect your organization. Employees that work with patient data are essential to keeping your organization HIPAA compliant. From hold trainings to having a foolproof social media policy, here are 5 tips for helping your employees understand HIPAA compliance.

With HIPAA Phase 2 audits looming on the horizon, many organizations are gearing up for the audits with internal assessments. We've already talked about how your organization might be unwittingly violating HIPAA, but what penalties are you really facing?

As we approach the end of Q1 in 2015, it's time to look at what trends are taking the lead in healthcare. There have been many predictions made on which arenas will be pushed to the forefront (such as healthcare IT improvements, new biotech releases, etc.), but which have actually come true? Let's take a look.

The Quantified Self Movement was started back in 2007 by a group of bloggers at Wired Magazine who began blogging about the concept of “life logging” or, as it’s sometimes called, humanistic intelligence. The implications of this technological innovation have widespread implications for healthcare improvement, and tech megaliths like Apple and Sony have been anxious to get their piece of the pie by racing to develop apps and wearable tech for patients.

With all this talk about making patient records more accessible to care teams via the magic of the electronic record, HIPAA and HITECH— the two laws that govern patient privacy — might seem like a bit of a downer. They serve a very explicit purpose, however, and ensuring that you are always in compliance will not only save you legal woes, but money in the form of fines and penalties for breaches.
There are some obvious breaches of confidentiality that we must strive to avoid: you would never, for instance, post to all your Facebook followers the name, diagnosis and prognosis of a particularly difficult patient that you had today. What you might do instead, though, is go home and tell your spouse all about it.
That’s a HIPAA violation.

If you think young people are the only ones ready to embrace telemed technology and healthcare social media, think again! It might surprise you to know that the 60 + demographic of patients in the U.S. are quickly becoming the most eager to embrace the technology.
With good reason: many of these patients may be housebound as a result of their chronic conditions or, at the very least, are unable to drive to the office. This group of patients is quite eager to embrace remote technology, like Skype and email, as a means of communication to their healthcare providers. It’s not uncommon for these patients to have many doctors, sometimes across several states, and having the ability to communicate effectively without necessarily having to travel is a huge draw.

"BHM provides consultation and direct clinical oversight to East Carolina Behavioral Health as a delegated authority for clinical peer review and physician services. We have been extremely satisfied, and value the organization’s depth and breadth of knowledge. BHM continues to exceed our expectations."

Cindy Ehlers,
V P Clinical Operations, Trillium (formerly ECBH)

"6 of the top 10 largest health plans* entrust BHM for behavioral health peer reviews.